An Ainsdale man has been jailed after stealing more than £20,000 from his former bosses at a town centre estate agent.
Kieran Moore then splashed the stolen cash on a Jaguar car and Lego sets, a court was told
Moore pocketed more than £20,000 from Anthony James Estate Agents after an apparently acrimonious end to his job.
Evidence showed he purchased the car on the same day he received an illicit £18,000 lump sum but Moore claimed that the timing of this had merely been a “bad coincidence”
The 39-year-old had been employed as accounts manager at Anthony James Estate Agents “for some time” but, by February 2021, began to experience “performance issues” in his role.
Moore, from Ainsdale, went on to resign during a disciplinary meeting.
Prosecutors told how two sums of money were then “paid into” one of his bank accounts in the space of a month. One totalling £1,966.36 landed on March 9, followed by a further £18,451.32 on April 9.
These funds were then transferred into another account in Moore’s name.
On the first occasion the monies were spent on “expensive” Lego sets, while the second tranche was used to buy a Jaguar on the same date it was received.
Moore was found guilty of two counts of theft by a jury following a trial, but cleared of two charges of fraud.
He was jailed for 15 months, and could now be ordered to repay the stolen cash under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Sentencing, Judge David Swinnerton said: “For whatever reason, monies from your recently former employer were transferred into your bank account. Your explanation to the police was that you thought it was a large sum of cryptocurrency that was being transferred and you did not notice that £18,451.32, despite the fact that your annual salary was somewhere between £21,000 and £24,000.
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